


Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

by hannasus



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony misses JARVIS; Pepper comforts him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt supplied by moonlilz. This is based on my interpretation of what happened in the movie, which I’ve only seen once, so it may or may not be 100% correct, but whatever, it’s what makes the most sense to me.

The first time it happened, Pepper let it go without comment. And the second.

The third time she heard Tony slip up and start to call Friday “JARVIS” she decided it was time to say something.

They were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, each of them engrossed in work: Tony on a tablet and Pepper on her laptop. She set her computer aside and turned to look at him. “You miss him.”

“Hmm?” Tony muttered without looking up. “Who?”

“JARVIS. You miss him.”

Tony shook his head slightly but didn’t look at her. “JARVIS is a program, not a _him._ ” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Was a program.”

“ _He_ was a lot more than just a program,” Pepper said. “You based him on the man who practically raised you. You used to call him buddy.”

“I call the gardener buddy sometimes, too. Doesn’t make us family.”

“You call the gardener buddy because you don’t know his name.”

“Precisely.”

Pepper sighed. “I don’t understand why you don’t just reinstall him? If you were able to recover enough of JARVIS’ code to upload into Vision—”

“Because we can’t go back,” Tony snapped. He was looking at her now, finally, and his expression was terrible. Terrible enough that she was almost sorry she’d started the conversation. She wanted to crawl into his lap and put her arms around him and kiss away that expression on his face. But this was a problem that couldn’t be kissed away. He needed to talk about it, and if they started kissing they wouldn’t be talking.

“Why not?” she asked him instead.

He looked away, frowning. “Because there’s a person in the world now who didn’t exist before,” he said, his voice low and hard, “and he doesn’t just have JARVIS’ voice—he’s got his memories and his personality and his consciousness. JARVIS is a part of his mind, a part of who he is—a part of his soul, I guess, if you wanna get poetic about it. So no, I can’t just go back to having him start my coffeemaker and control the damn air conditioner.” He looked at her again, his expression gone flat but his eyes dark and sad, holding hers. “Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.” She scooted closer to him. Not into his lap like she wanted to, but just beside him on the couch so she could take his hand. “But you miss him.”

Instead of answering, he raised her hand and held it over his heart, against the smooth, unbroken plane of his chest where the arc reactor used to be.

She could feel his heartbeat in her palm, strong and steady and constant. “Say it. Say you miss him.”

Tony stared at her, but she was more patient than he was and prepared to wait him out. He pressed his lips together and looked away. “I miss him,” he said quietly, his voice breaking slightly on the last word. He looked back her accusingly. “You happy now?”

“I miss him too,” she said, and then leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth opened automatically, his tongue seeking out hers. Her hand was still pressed against his chest and she could feel his heartbeat quicken. She pulled away from the kiss and reached up to caress his cheek with her free hand. He leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering half-closed. “Come on,” she said.

He blinked at her. “Where?”

She stood up, still holding onto his hand. “The bedroom.”

The corner of his mouth curved slightly, but he didn’t get up. “I thought you had a lot of work to do.”

“Something more important came up.”

His eyebrows lifted suggestively. “What?”

“You.”

He smiled—a real smile, even if it was a little sad around the edges. And then he stood up and let her take him to bed.


End file.
